Katie Price opens up over rare cancer diagnosis after one sign

Daily Mirror

a day ago

Katie Price, 47, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer while she was pregnant with her eldest son, Harvey
Katie Price has opened up about her battle with a rare form of cancer that she was diagnosed with while pregnant with her son Harvey.
The 47-year-old former glamour model, who became pregnant in 2002 after a brief fling with ex-Premier League star Dwight Yorke, was told by doctors that the stress of her pregnancy could have triggered the development of leiomyosarcoma, commonly referred to as LMS.
Just 11 weeks after discovering her son Harvey Price had Prader-Willi Syndrome and was blind, Katie was diagnosed with the uncommon cancer. She shared her ordeal on Katherine Ryan's podcast What's My Age Again?, revealing that the cancer developed on her hand.
LMS is a type of soft tissue sarcoma with a 50 per cent survival rate at an advanced stage. Katie initially learned of the lump on her hand when a manicurist noticed it, but two doctors initially dismissed it as harmless.
However, she was later advised to have the growth removed and underwent a biopsy at Nuffield Hospital in Brighton, where the lump was excised, reports Plymouth Live.
In conversation with comedian Katherine Ryan, Katie recounted: "While I was pregnant with Harvey I got cancer. I didn't know that until, because they couldn't do all the scans, after.
"It was in my hand, they took it out, it was called leiomyosarcoma. Apparently I got that from being pregnant, the stress of it."
She recalled informing her mother about her diagnosis in a casual manner, saying: "So when I phoned my mum, I just remember going: 'Mum, just to let you know, they found cancer'. I was so flippant like that because so much had already happened to me by then."
She explained: "It was just a, 'Yeah, this has happened now', 'Yeah, that's happened now'. I think about it and then I'm just like, oh, well, you just got to get on with it."
After her diagnosis, Katie had to attend regular check-ups following the removal of the growth. At the time, she described Harvey as her "inspiration" during her health scare.
According to Sarcoma UK, there are around 525 cases of LMS each year in the United Kingdom. The condition affects women more than men, with the median age of diagnosis being 64.
The prognosis is generally positive, with around 79% of women and 90% of men surviving the condition for at least a year. Treatment options often involve surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy.
Katie went on to have two more children, Junior and Princess, with her ex-husband Peter Andre, whom she met on the set of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2004 and married in 2005. However, they divorced in 2009.
Katie later married Alex Reid in 2010, but they divorced after just a year.
In 2013, she married Kieran Hayler, with whom she had two children, Bunny and Jett, before divorcing in 2021. Katie is currently in a relationship with JJ Slater, a former contestant on Married at First Sight.